Captain Greene's toughest mission

Mark Hume, Globe & Mail, 21 Oct 06

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VANCOUVER — Debbie Lepore was lying in bed with the darkness of night starting to soften and cold showers falling on the city when she heard someone at the door.

She knew immediately what it meant. Her man was in Afghanistan. And there in the darkness, before the phone started to ring incessantly, before the haunting images began to flicker across the television screen with news reports, she knew.

Something terrible had happened to Captain Trevor Greene, the big, good looking, athletic writer and soldier she had met five years earlier, to whom she was engaged, and with whom she had recently had a baby girl, named Grace.

“It was about 6 or 6:30 in the morning. Saturday. March 4th,” she said in an interview from Vancouver General Hospital this week, where she goes daily.

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Lieutenant Trevor Greene, of Vancouver, B.C., is seen in this undated photo.

“There was a knock on the door. You know instantly what it is.”

She'd had that premonition once before, months earlier, when Canadian military officers had come to her Vancouver home to tell her Capt. Greene, 41, had suffered minor injuries in an attack on an armoured vehicle he was in.

“I had a sense it was more serious this time,” she said.

And it was. Capt. Greene, a man who friends say always wanted “to do good,” a champion of the downtrodden who wrote books about the missing women of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the homeless in Japan, was struck in the head with an axe when he sat down with Afghan villagers to talk about how to get clean water for their homes and farms.

A member of a military unit known as CIMIC, for Civilian-Military Co-operation, Capt. Greene had taken off his helmet as a sign of trust and respect.

He was attacked from behind, suffering a deep head wound that put him in a coma for weeks, and which, nearly eight months later, has left him confined to a hospital bed. His attacker was shot dead.

Capt. Green was not the first Canadian soldier to be injured in Afghanistan, but the attack on him shocked Canadians — perhaps because its nature brought home to them the reality that this was a mission like no other, where violence and treachery could come from anywhere, without warning.

Ms. Lepore held her breath and opened the front door.

“I can't recall what was said. I can't even remember who was there. One was a military padre,” she said.

She laughed at herself for forgetting the details. “I don't know if it was the shock or maybe it's just that so much has happened since then. But the details are gone.”

A lot has happened since then, as Capt. Greene has begun a second mission – one at least as challenging as anything he faced in Afghanistan – where the goal is simply to get well, get whole again.

In that moment, Ms. Lepore's life was also changed dramatically. She went from having a busy, orderly life filled with raising Grace and crunching numbers for the Catalyst Paper Corp., to one that has submerged her in the medical world of head trauma and rehabilitation.

“I am the type of person who just gets immersed in it,” she said. “I have to learn everything about it to the point where I sometimes catch myself using medical jargon to friends who have no idea what I'm talking about.”

Within 24 hours of hearing of the attack, she was en route to a hospital in Landsthul, Germany, accompanied by Capt. Greene's parents and Canadian military escorts, who have stayed in touch with her almost daily since then.

“When I first saw him he was in a medically induced coma,” she said. “But he looked like his old self. Except for the swelling (from his head wound). I felt right then he was going to make it.”

In the months since then, Capt. Greene's family and friends have maintained a constant vigil, praying that one day he will be fully recovered.

For now, it remains a struggle where progress is measured in the simplest movements, a smile, or a few words, a gesture with a hand.

He is mostly confined to a bed at Vancouver General Hospital. His family and friends visit him daily.

Ms. Lepore or others take turns holding up a newspaper for him to read, or reading to him from books.

He does crossword puzzles with the help of friends. Sometimes he sends messages on a BlackBerry (a friend types; he presses send) or has brief conversations. Talking is difficult because he has had a tracheotomy, a surgical procedure to open his wind pipe, which leaves his throat dry.

Ms. Lepore works daily with him on physical rehabilitation, moving his limbs, helping him from his bed to sit in a chair, massaging his atrophied muscles. And every day she gives him a Chinese herbal footbath.

Although progress is slow, she said, he has been showing great signs of recovery, regaining his sense of touch – and his famous sense of humour.

“You can make him laugh and it's great when he does,” she said.

One day a nurse commented on his ability to drink lots of water.

“You should see me drink beer,” he said.

There is no official prognosis. His head injury was severe and doctors don't know how far he can go in recovery, or how fast. But Ms. Lepore, other family members and friends who have visited him all say the same thing.

If anybody can make a come back from this, it's Trevor, or ‘Bubba' as he's known to his closest friends.

Ms. Lepore said her faith in his ability to recover was shaken only once, early at Landsthul, when he slipped from medically stable to unstable.

“We did a lot of praying that night,” she said. “And the next day he bounced back and was stable – and I have never doubted since then. I really believe in positive energy and I have nothing but positive thoughts. As my grandmother says, ‘Why worry about what might not happen?' I just believe everything's going to be good, everything is going to work out.”

Ms. Lepore isn't alone in that approach. Shortly after news of the attack on Capt. Greene, a network of his friends, alerted by e-mails, text messages and phone calls, gathered at his favourite Vancouver beach, Jericho. About 50 people came out in a lashing rainstorm to share stories about the rugby player and reserve soldier who stepped up when the call to Afghanistan came — because he thought he could help bring peace to a war-torn area where people deserved better.

“We just wanted to send out positive energy,” said Barb Stegemann who helped organize that spontaneous gathering. She has been a friend of Capt. Greene's since they went to school together at University of Kings College, in Halifax, in the 1980s, where they were both in the rowing program and shared a mentor who encouraged them to “serve the homeless and those who were unprotected in society.”

Ms. Stegemann described him as a remarkable man with a passion for life and a deep feeling of compassion for those in need.

Striving to establish his credentials as a writer, he took on difficult subjects where he could give a voice to those who had none in mainstream society.

That same attitude led him to become a CIMIC officer, where he could work on helping “the average Afghan,” get basic things like food, water and schools.

Ms. Stegemann described Capt. Greene, renowned for his athletic skills as a rugby player and rower, as a big man, 6 feet 7 inches, with a gentle soul and gregarious personality.

“I really think it's important to convey the fact that he's always been a protector of people. I always used to tease him about his white horse he comes charging in on. But he's always looked out for people that are being bullied or harmed. I remember in university he would go across the campus to ensure that a girl got across safely, even if he didn't know her. He wouldn't let someone leave an event and walk alone. I always thought that was remarkable for a young man to be so protective of people. I think that really testifies as to why he went to Afghanistan, to ensure that the people there are heard and that they feel protected. I think that connects and loops back to everything else that he is.”

Ms. Stegemann said she was shocked when a phone call alerted her to Capt. Greene's injury, and she didn't know what to expect when she first visited him at the hospital. But after seeing the recovery he's made so far she believes he's going to prevail.

“Doctors have said you don't see injuries like this very often. Dealing with an injury like that is new ground. But he's remarkably strong, incredibly strong, to be with us still after that severe attack. He's on his own healing journey and he has successes every day and for that we're grateful,” she said.

Robyn Gibson, another friend from college, said he was “shaken and terrified” when he heard of the attack but quickly his fears gave way to a feeling of confidence.

“To get in there and see him and see that infectious smile, to see those bright eyes, was just to reassure me what I know, which is that Trevor will make a full recovery,” he said.

Mr. Gibson recalled an outing he had with his friend before he went to Afghanistan. Out of the blue Capt. Greene called up to say he wanted to go bike riding. But Mr. Gibson, “a Lance Armstrong wannabe” warned him off, saying he'd be taking a high performance bike on a gruelling, high speed ride out around the University of B.C. campus and Vancouver International Airport.

Capt. Greene, he said, showed up on an old mountain bike, wearing flip flops – and proceeded to stick with him for the whole ride.

“He's just not a quitter,” he said, laughing at the memory. “It just never occurred to him to turn back.”

“This will tell you something about him,” he added. “ I think his greatest disappointment to finding himself in that hospital is that he won't finish his mission. I know that sounds crazy, but this is a guy who believes in the Canadian mission, who believes in the UN . . . if he regrets anything it's that he didn't complete the job.”

Richard Greene, Capt. Greene's father, agreed with that assessment.

One of the first things his son asked doctors when he regained the ability to talk was when he'd be able to go back to Afghanistan.

Mr. Greene, a retired RCMP officer, said he thought he knew his son well before the accident, but has learned more about him since, by listening to his large circle of friends talk about the life he led.

He and his son have particularly enjoyed the company of Capt. Greene's former rugby teammates from the Vancouver Rowing Club.

“They have left rugby balls and rugby shirts all over the hospital room,” he said. “They are a rowdy bunch. And Trevor just loves seeing them.”

On the field Capt. Greene was a big, physical player and it is frustrating for him to be bedridden, Mr. Greene said.

Last month Capt. Greene went through a second round of head surgery, after earlier operations in May. Since then, Mr. Greene said, there has been noticeable improvement.

“His motor skills were very severely damaged. But he can move his arms and fingers and hands. The reconnections are taking place and he's able to do a heck of a lot more now than he did in July.”

“He wants to come back. We know that,” Mr. Greene said. “It's now up to us to bring him back.”

When he says “us,” he means Capt. Greene's family, his large circle of friends, his military supporters, doctors, therapists – and the thousands of Canadians who have sent messages of support and prayer.

But mostly he means his son's fiancée, Ms. Lepore, who Capt. Greene planned to marry on his return from Afghanistan.

Friends describe her as “an angel” who brings a sense of hope with her on every visit to the hospital.

Ms. Lepore said the greatest motivator both for her and Capt. Greene, is their bubbly, 21-month-old daughter.

“Grace is always happy. She's a joy for us both,” she said.

Capt. Greene will soon be able to leave the hospital and the family is searching for a rehabilitation facility that is experienced with handling patients with such severe brain injuries.

Ms. Lepore said that will probably require leaving B.C. and perhaps Canada. She will have to quit her job, leaving a company that has been “incredibly supportive.”

But she won't hesitate to pack up and move both herself and Grace.

“Wherever he goes, we go,” she said. “We're his team.”